The Outfit

One is ruled by image; everything is appearance. This fact, documented by novelists; since it informs their observational material in large part; raises the question of how then, it is so vague to us, how it is so ill-seen, such a cloud of nothing, that here lies the dictator, posing in the mirror and setting out its terms of necessity. The ‘triviality’ of it perhaps distracts us from acknowledging the power thereby hidden in its blank cheque of meaning; so it is not factored in – it doesn’t register – as a thing in itself – but is acknowledged to exist only in so far as it impinges on the social network that supports us, since – in such terms – it plays a significant dynamic role in the context of the values, judgements and decisions that politicians make on our behalf in so far as a kind of defensive manoeuvring is then undertaken on its behalf.

Many strange or baffling or seemingly inexplicable or obtuse political decisions can probably be explained by this dynamic.